The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by their inclusion in this section.
Computers and data networks are very powerful tools for performing a wide-variety of tasks. One task that computers and data networks are very useful for is electronic messaging. Typically, electronic messaging involves an electronic communication automatically generated by a computer program and displayed to an intended human recipient on a display screen. The electronic communication may also be interactive. The electronic communication can take a variety of different forms but typically is in the form of a web page, an electronic mail message (i.e., an Email message), a forum post or comment, a text message, an instant message, a push notification, a social network post or comment, or other electronic information that a human can view and potentially interact with using a computer. “Email” is the well-known method of exchanging electronic communications (i.e., Email messages) using a store-and-forward model. More information about Email is available on the Internet at /wiki/Email in the wikipedia.org domain, the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference. A “push notification” is an electronic communication that is “pushed” from a backend server or an application to a user interface such as, for example, the user interface of a portable computing device (e.g., a mobile phone). More information about push notifications is available on the Internet at/wiki/Push_Notification in the wikipedia.org domain, the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The sequence and timing of electronic messaging actions with respect to electronic communications can affect how well the communications are received. For example, assume a user of an online service has already received an Email message prompting the user to try out a new feature of the online service. If the user does not open the Email message within a certain period of time (e.g., within 7 days), then a push notification about the new feature is sent to the user. On the other hand, if the user opens the Email within the time period, then another Email providing more details about the new feature is immediately sent to the user. The sequencing and timing of the additional Email with respect to the original Email can be critically important. For example, if the additional Email is sent to the user without the context of the user having just opened the original Email, then the user might be confused by or uninterested in the details about the new feature in the additional Email. In this case, the additional Email may be “lost” on the user.
Techniques described herein address these issues by providing the real-time trigger for event-based electronic communication system messaging.